Eat Drink Magazine #5
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Eating together builds a healthy community
From wars to weather there have been a number of recent reminders about the primary importance of access to the basics of food and water. Without it we cannot thrive as individuals or as communities.
It is no wonder that as a species we often define ourselves by the food and beverages we invent and the customs we create around them – we make these a key part of the processes that bring us together.
Research from the University of Oxford by Professor Robin Dunbar has revealed that ‘the more often people eat with others, the more likely they are to feel happy and satisfied with their lives’.
‘The results suggest that communal eating increases social bonding and feelings of wellbeing, and enhances one’s sense of contentedness and embedding within the community.
‘Researchers found that people who eat socially are more likely to feel better about themselves and have a wider social network capable of providing social and emotional support.’
So, food is not only essential to sustaining our physical bodies but also to our wellbeing. It is the connection, the glue, the way for people to come together to break bread, to drink the blood of Christ, to create community and to make peace.
Professor Dunbar explained that, ‘This study suggests that social eating has an important role in the facilitation of social bonding, and that communal eating may have even evolved as a mechanism for humans to do just that.
‘We know from previous studies that social networks are important in combating mental and physical illness. A significant proportion of respondents felt that having a meal together was an important way of making or reinforcing these social networks. In these increasingly fraught times, when community cohesion is ever more important, making time for, and joining in communal meals is perhaps the single most important thing we can do – both for our own health and wellbeing and for that of the wider community.’
From fast food to the slow food revolution, to juicing, and farming local and indigenous foods there is a wealth of food and drinks being created, invented and brought to life in the Northern Rivers.
I’ve never heard a better excuse for getting together with friends, family and our community – it is good for us – all of us. So take the chance to get together a picnic, book a table at a restaurant, order in a dinner party or create some of your own adventurous food and beverage inventions out of the amazing local produce available in the region and share them.
Bon appetit!
– Aslan Shand, editor
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